System and method for providing call statistics in real time

ABSTRACT

A display tool and a call distribution system that provides queue and agent statistics, resulting from telecommunications events (i.e., service calls), for viewing on a monitor of a computer. A first server receives information associated with the telecommunications events, including queue and agent statistics, and places the information in a predetermined record format. The information is forwarded to a second server interconnected in a network. A module executed on a specific end node (e.g., computer) enables communications between the second server and the computer. This module is configured to control the computer to retrieve the information and create a display window to display contents of the information on the monitor in real-time.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] The present invention relates to the field of software-basedtools. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system andmethod that provide real-time queue and agent statistics through adisplay tool operating in a Windows™ environment.

[0003] 2. Description of Art Related to the Invention

[0004] With the continual advancement of technology, many businesseshave implemented or are in the process of implementing customer relationsupport groups having agents who provide technical advice, productinformation, and sales information to current and potential customersover the telephone. For large corporations selling a wide range ofproducts, the support groups may be divided into a number of callcenters trained to handle questions about specific product(s) orservice(s).

[0005] Referring to FIG. 1, each agent of the support group currently isprovided with a workspace having a computer 100 and a phone 110 fromwhich the agent can “log” into a public branch exchange (“PBX”) 120remotely located from his or her workspace as shown. The PBX 120performs the telecommunication switching of calls received from publictelephone medium 130 (e.g., telephone lines as shown, radio frequency,etc.). When an agent “logs” into the PBX 120, the PBX 120 becomes awarethat the agent is ready to receive calls from persons having questionsregarding a specific product(s) or service(s) assigned to the agent. Asthe number of calls pertaining to the specific product(s) or service(s)increase and agents are temporarily unavailable, the PBX 120 temporarilyplaces the caller on “hold” in accordance with a first-in, first-out“FIFO” queue located within the PBX 120, until a responsible agent isable to handle the call. The PBX 120 supports multiple queues.

[0006] The phone 110 includes a liquid crystal display 111 and one ormore control buttons 112 a-112 n (“n” being arbitrary). The liquidcrystal display 111 provides a limited display of alpha-numericcharacters (e.g., 40 text characters). Upon depressing a first controlbutton 1121, the agent is able to “log” into the PBX 120. Thereafter,upon depressing a second control button 1122, the agent is able toascertain real-time queue statistics (e.g., number of calls outstanding)for the queue associated with the product(s) or services supported bythe agent. Likewise, the second control button 1122 may be furtherdepressed to ascertain call center or agent statistics such as thenumber of callers queued for other products supported by the technicalsupport group, his or her individual or call center's statistics (e.g.,average call time) and the like.

[0007] While the phone 110 may provide limited information to the agent,it possesses a number of disadvantages. One inherent disadvantage isthat the phone 110 is separate from a personal computer from which theagents may be able to access information to answer various complexquestions by the callers. Another disadvantage is that the liquidcrystal display 111 of the phone 110 has limited viewing capability andis restricted to text characters which may be more difficult toreference and conveys less information than graphical illustrations. Yetanother disadvantage is that an agent is only able to obtain informationabout queues that he or she has access (i.e., is “logged” onto the PBXthat supports those queues). This poses a problem for agents receivingcalls from other company owned call center sites, such as other remotePBXs, due to extreme call volume, temporary closure of the site inobservance of a national holiday, or any other situations at the site.

[0008] A further disadvantage associated with the phone 110 is that itdoes not provide a broadcasting mechanism which would allow a supervisorof the call center support personnel to transmit an important message toa certain call center support group or to an individual agent.

[0009] Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a local areanetwork “LAN” based system and method that overcome the above-identifieddisadvantages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0010] The present invention relates to a display tool that providesqueue and agent statistics resulting from telecommunications eventswhich are viewed on a monitor of a computer in real time. A serverreceives the event information, including queue and agent statistics,and places the event information in a predetermined record format. Whenexecuted on the computer, a first module enables communications betweenthe server and the computer by controlling the computer to retrieve theevent information in a predetermined record format and creating adisplay window to display contents of the event information on themonitor in real-time.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011] The features and advantages of the present invention will becomeapparent from the following detailed description of the presentinvention in which:

[0012]FIG. 1 is a block diagram depicting a conventional call centersupport phone including a liquid crystal display which precludescross-site call center queue sharing;

[0013]FIG. 2 is a system block diagram of one embodiment of the presentinvention in which a LAN-based server is configured to interact with anACR system at its site and LAN-based servers connected to ACR systems atother sites to allow call center agents to view real-time queueinformation at multiple sites;

[0014]FIG. 3 is a representation of one embodiment of a file structureutilized by an ACR system to collect data pertaining to queue status andagent statistics;

[0015]FIG. 4 is a perspective view of one embodiment of the screendisplay associated with the present invention;

[0016]FIG. 5 is a perspective view of another embodiment of the screendisplay associated with the present invention; and

[0017]FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating the operations of the presentinvention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0018] The present invention describes a display tool that providesreal-time queue and agent statistics viewable on an information handlingsystem (e.g., a desktop computer, laptop computer, or other hardwareperipheral) operating in a Windows™ environment. As provided below, thefollowing description is presented in terms of block diagrams and aflowchart which collectively are considered to be the most effective wayto convey the substance of the present invention to those persons ofordinary skill in the art of software-based tools. However, programmingcode and well-known operations are not discussed in detail in order toavoid obscuring the present invention.

[0019] Some terminology specific to the PBX environment that supportsthe present invention is used to discuss certain well-knowncommunication attributes. For example, a “telecommunications switchextension number” is a number utilized by a Call Data Collection System(“CDCS”) to identifying the substantive nature of the call beforerouting the call to a particular vector. One type of telecommunicationsswitch extension number is a vector directory number “VDN” used by apublic branch exchange (“PBX”). A “vector” is a set of instructions onhow to process the call while the CDCS monitors and stores informationabout each call. A “queue” is a holding area for calls waiting to beanswered by a group of call center support agents and is identified inthe PBX by a extension number with sub-extension numbers. Systemadministrators are able to selectively configure the queues to supportthe mapping of one or more VDNs to that particular queue. An “agent” isanyone using the present invention to view real-time queue or agentstatistics. A “module” is a telecommunications hardware device or agroup of telecommunications hardware devices.

[0020] Referring now to FIG. 2, an illustrative block diagram of asystem utilizing the desktop display tool is shown. With respect to amultiple-site business, each site normally includes an automatic callreporting (“ACR”) system 200 to receive calls directed to phoneextensions of that business site, to temporarily store calls in apreassigned queue located in a public branch exchange (“PBX”), to routethe calls to specific end nodes (e.g., telephones, information handlingsystems such as computers, etc.), and to monitor predeterminedstatistics associated with the calls in real time. For clarity purposes,the ACR system 200 is an on-site PBX 210, working in combination with aCall Management System (“CMS”) server 220. The CMS server 220 is, forexample, one manufactured by American Telegraph and Telephone Company(“AT&T”). It is contemplated that other telephone routing and monitoringequipment from other manufacturers may be substituted for the CMS server220.

[0021] The calls directed to the “on-site” ACR system 200 and possiblyother calls directed from one or more off-site ACR systems (e.g., twooff-site PBXs 211 and 212) are coupled to the CMS server 220 throughdedicated lines 215-217. Each of the lines 215-217 is preferably, butnot exclusively, a “T1” communication channel. A “T1” communicationchannel is capable of supporting twenty-four (24) distally multiplexersimultaneous voice channels. A well-known AT&T hardware routing devicereferred to as a “data mod” 230 may be interposed between the PBXs210-212 and the CMS server 220 to obtain specific data from the PBXs210-212 via lines 215-217 and to transfer that data to the CMS server220 through at least one voice channel. This data pertains to callactivity and agent statistics, which may include, but are not limited toa vector directory number (“VDN”), a number of calls waiting in thequeue associated with the VDN, time duration of the oldest call still inthe queue and the site identification number associated with thisinformation. It is contemplated, however, that other types of ACRsystems may not require the data mod 230.

[0022] Referring still to FIG. 2, the CMS server 220 operates as adatabase to measure call activity and store the selected data. Moreparticularly, for the purposes of this present invention, the CMS server220 includes (i) hardware (e.g., volatile memory) to store informationincluding the specific data within a selected number of records forminga file structure as shown in FIG. 3, and (ii) software to control thestorage of the specific data within that file structure. Besides beingconnected to each PBX 210-212 through the data mod 230, the CMS server220 is also connected to a local area network (“LAN”) based server 240through transmission lines 250 operating under a network communicationprotocol such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol(“TCP/IP”). The transmission lines 250 that supports a limited bandwidthranging from 10 million bits per second (“Mbps”) up to 100 Mbps forFastEthernet™ physical medium.

[0023] The CMS server 220 periodically sends VDN and other informationto a LAN-based server 240, running a software application (e.g.,Microsoft® Windows NT™, Version 3.5.1) under TCP/IP by which informationhandling systems, computers for example, communicate with each other. Asoftware program (e.g., SQL Server™, Version 6.0), operating on theLAN-based server 240, is configured to receive data from CMS server 220and store the data on a Microsoft SQL Server (“SQL Server”) databasethat also resides on the LAN-based server 240. Microsoft® Windows™ andSQL Server™ are software programs created by Microsoft Corporationlocated in Redmond, Wash. Communication between the program thatreceives the data from CMS server 220 and the SQL Server database isprovided by Borland Database Engine “BDE” (Version 2.5 for 16-bit,Version 3.0 for 32-bit) and the Borland SQL Links “SQL Links” (Version2.5 for 16-bit, Version 3.0 for 32-bit) software which are notillustrated. The BDE and SQL Links are software products created byBorland International of Scotts Valley, Calif. that enable thedevelopment of software that can utilize databases.

[0024] Referring now to FIG. 3, the data structure associated withinformation transferred from the CMS server to the LAN-based serverincludes a “Vector Directory Number” (“VDN”) field 310, a “Call Waiting”field 320, a “Call Pending” field 330, an “Automatic Call Distribution”field 340 and an additional field 350 reserved for future developmentneeds. The VDN field 310 is configured to contain a VDN associated withthe call. This VDN provides information about the nature of the call(e.g., to which specific product or service the call is directed). TheCall Waiting field 320 is configured to contain the number of callsassociated with the VDN that are awaiting assistance by one of theagents. The Call Pending field 330 is configured to contain a time value(e.g., seconds) on the longest duration a call has been waiting in thequeue. Finally, the Automatic Call Distribution (“ACD”) field 340 isconfigured to contain information which identifies to which site thecall is directed. This information allows the CMS server to displayinformation about queues at other sites. For each VDN in all the ACRsystems that the CMS server measures, these five fields are sent to theLAN-based server at an interval specified on the CMS server. Theinterval is greater than four seconds, and usually, is at least 15seconds in duration to reduce the amount of network traffic created bysending the VDN and other information.

[0025] Referring back to FIG. 2, the LAN-based server 240 is connectedto the information handling systems, for example personal computers 260,of the agents via a local area network (“LAN”). Each of these personalcomputers 260 runs a program that creates a display shown on a monitorof the computer (see FIGS. 4-5) and establishes a communication link 265with the LAN-based server 240 to retrieve the queue information storedon the SQL Server database. Likewise, the LAN-based server 240 may beconnected to other remote ACR systems 270 at remote sites through itscorresponding remote LAN-based servers 275 connected to the LAN-basedserver through a wide area network (“WAN”) communication link 280. As aresult, agents from one site would be able to monitor queues normallysupported by other sites which is currently not available in connectionwith prior art techniques.

[0026] Referring now to FIGS. 4 and 5, two embodiments of the screendisplay produced by the program that is executed by the computer areshown. These two embodiments represent a full-size display 400 and areduced-size display 500 as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, respectively. Eachof these display embodiments presents information for the queues thatthe agent provides service. For both embodiments of the screen display,an agent can view (i) the name of the queue 405 and 505, (ii) how manycalls are waiting to be served 410 and 510; (iii) how long has the callthat has been waiting the longest amount of time been waiting 415 and515; and (iv) how many calls have been answered today by all agents forthis queue 420 and 520.

[0027] The status of the queue is further depicted by the display of acolored coded box 425 and 525 that informs the agent of the currentstate of the calls waiting to be served and the longest call waiting. Bychanging from green to yellow to red depending on the predeterminedthreshold values, these boxes 425 and 525 give agents an intuitivevisual status of the queues that they service.

[0028] The full-sized and reduced-size displays 400 and 500 also includean area designated to display agent statistics. This area displays thenumber of calls handled by the agent (e.g., field 430) and the averagetime of each service call handled by the agent (e.g., field 435) for thecurrent day. These agent statistics are provided so that the agent hasfeedback on whether he or she is being efficient in his or her assignedtask. These agent statistics as well as the queue information areupdated after a predetermined period of time has elapsed (e.g.,approximately 15 seconds for queue information, approximately 30 minutesfor agent information).

[0029] Differing from the reduced-size display 500, the full-sizedisplay 400 further includes an area 440 that is used to displaybroadcast messages that can be sent by supervisors. Messages can becleared by double-clicking on them or clicking once and pressing thedelete key. The primary purpose of the message is to serve as a meansfor call center-wide notifications to be communicated. The reduced-sizeview of FIG. 5 will expand to a full-size in the event that a message isdelivered. The main purpose for having the reduced-size screen is tolimit the amount of screen space that the program takes up, since itwill be running on the agent's desktop at all times.

[0030] Other features include the ability to have the screen stayvisible at all times regardless of how many other Windows™ programs arerunning by configuring the display to always be on top and the abilityto customize the display (threshold box size and distance betweenqueues).

[0031] Referring now to FIG. 6, a flowchart representing the operationsof transferring data in the form of queue status and agent statisticsthrough the file structure of FIG. 3 between the ACR system(s) and theLAN-based server within the AT&T PBX and CMS environment is shown. Forclarity, the ACR system is the PBX and CMS server hardware devices.First, in step 600, an individual places a call to a particular businessusing an assigned telephone number. The call is routed to the PBX whichtranslates the digital data associated with the telephone number into aVDN (Step 605). This may be accomplished by removing one or more numbersassociated with the telephone number or creating a VDN independent ofthe telephone number. The VDN is routed to a vector which is assigned toprocess the call (Step 610). Such processing may be performed throughautomatic routing or voice announcements prompting the caller to selectnumbers to route the call. Upon routing the call to a queue extensionvia the vector, the call is monitored by the CMS server (Step 615).

[0032] More particularly, the CMS server is configured to monitorparticular data associated with each VDN and place the data in a CMSdefined record format (Step 620) of the file structure before retrievalto the agent's computer executing a software application in thebackground. The executable software application contained in eachpersonal computer may be configured to retrieve the particular datastored in the file structure after a preselected duration being inminutes and/or in seconds (e.g., 15 seconds).

[0033] The contents of a particular record(s) of the file structure aretransferred to the LAN-based server through a selected port assigned forcommunication with the LAN-based server upon request by the LAN-basedserver (Step 625). The contents are imported into a table (e.g., a tablehaving a Microsoft SQL™ format) from a first format utilized by the CMSserver (Step 630), and then read by the executable software applicationrunning on the personal computers. Thereafter, the contents aredisplayed in a display window configured as shown in FIG. 4 or 5 toprovide the agent queue status and/or his or her statistics (Step 635).

[0034] The present invention described herein may be designed in manydifferent embodiments as evident to one skilled in the art than thosedescribed without departing from the spirit and scope of the presentinvention. The invention should, therefore be measured in terms of theclaims which follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. A display tool that provides queue and agentstatistics associated with a plurality of telecommunications events forviewing on a display interconnected to a network, the display toolcomprising: a first module configured to receive data associated witheach of the plurality of telecommunications events, and to place thedata in a first format; and a second module configured to receive thedata in the first format, and to place the data in a second formataccessible by an information handling system, the information handlingsystem being capable of creating a display window to display, inreal-time, a portion of the data in the second format in graphical andtextual representations on the display.
 2. The display tool according toclaim 1, wherein the first module is executed on a first server.
 3. Thedisplay tool according to claim 2, wherein the second module is executedon a second server interconnected to the network.
 4. The display toolaccording to claim 1, wherein the data in the first format includes afirst field including a telecommunications switch extension number thatprovides information about the nature of a telecommunications event; asecond field including a number of previous telecommunications eventshaving related telecommunications switch extension numbers that areawaiting service; and a third field including a time value of a longestduration that one of the number of previous telecommunications eventshas been awaiting service.
 5. The display tool according to claim 4,wherein the data in the first format further includes a fourth fieldincluding information identifying a site to which the telecommunicationsevent associated with the data is directed.
 6. The display toolaccording to claim 5, wherein the telecommunications event is atelephone call from a customer requesting information.
 7. A display toolthat provides queue and agent statistics associated with a plurality oftelecommunications events for viewing on a display interconnected to anetwork, comprising: means for receiving data associated with each ofthe plurality of telecommunications events and for placing the data in afirst format; and means for receiving the data in the first format andfor placing the data in a second format; means for accessing the data inthe second format; and means for creating a display window to display,in real-time and in graphical and textual representations, a portion ofthe data in the second format on the display.
 8. A call distributionsystem comprising: a first automatic call reporting unit located at afirst site, the first automatic call reporting unit being coupled to apublicly accessible communication medium; a first server coupled to thefirst automatic call reporting unit, the first server being capable ofreceiving data including queue and agent statistics and of placing thedata in a table format; and at least one computer coupled to the firstserver, the at least one computer being capable of executing at leastone software module to control the at least one computer to retrieve thedata in the table format, and to create a display window to display, inreal-time, a portion of the data on a monitor of the at least onecomputer.
 9. The call distribution system according to claim 8, whereinthe publicly accessible communication medium is one of a plurality oftelephone lines and a predefined frequency range.
 10. The calldistributed system according to claim 8 further comprising: acommunication link coupled to the first server; a second server coupledto the communication link; and a second automatic call reporting unitcoupled to the second server and placed at a second site remotelylocated from the first site, wherein the communication link, the secondserver and the second automatic call reporting unit would enable anagent located at the first site to monitor a queue normally supported bythe second automatic call reporting unit remotely located from the firstsite.
 11. The call distributed system according to claim 10, wherein thecommunication link includes a wide area network.
 12. The calldistributed system according to claim 11, wherein the first server is acomputer operative under a network communication protocol including aTransmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”).
 13. The calldistributed system according to claim 10, wherein each of said first andsecond automatic call reporting units include a public broadcastexchange device capable of receiving a plurality of calls directed tothe first site, and containing the plurality of calls in at least onepredetermined queue; and a call management service server capable ofmonitoring the at least one predetermined queue to obtain queue andagent statistics associated with the plurality of calls.
 14. The calldistributed system according to claim 13, wherein the queue and agentstatistics obtained by the call management service server are placed ina record format that includes a first field including atelecommunications switch extension number that provides informationabout the nature of one of the plurality of telephone calls; a secondfield including a number of outstanding calls associated with thetelecommunications switch extension number that are awaiting service;and a third field including a time value of a longest duration that oneof the number of outstanding calls has been awaiting service.
 15. Thecall distributed system according to claim 14, wherein the record formatfurther includes a fourth field including information identifying whichof said first and second sites the one of the plurality of calls isdirected.
 16. A call distribution system comprising: first callreporting means for receiving a plurality of calls through a publiclyaccessible communication medium, temporarily storing the plurality ofcalls in a pre-assigned queue, obtaining a first set of call statisticspertaining to the plurality of calls and routing the plurality of callsto a computing means, the first call reporting means being located at afirst site; first server means for receiving the first set of callstatistics, including queue and agent statistics, and for placing thefirst set of call statistics in a table format, the first server meansbeing coupled to the first call reporting means; and computing means forexecuting at least one module to control the computing means to retrievethe first set of call statistics in the table format, and for creating adisplay window to display in real-time, a portion of the first set ofcall statistics on a monitor of the computing means.
 17. The calldistribution system according to claim 16, wherein the publiclyaccessible communication medium is one of a plurality of telephone linesand a predefined frequency range.
 18. The call distributed systemaccording to claim 16 further comprising: bus means for transferring thefirst set of call statistics obtained by the first call reporting means,and a second set of call statistics obtained by a second call reportingmeans; second server means for receiving the first and second sets ofcall statistics, the second server means being coupled to the bus means;and the second call reporting means, configured to operate incombination with the second server means and the bus means, for enablingan agent located at the first site to monitor a queue normally supportedby the second call reporting means remotely located from the first site.19. The call distributed system according to claim 18, wherein the busmeans includes a wide area network.
 20. The call distributed systemaccording to claim 16, wherein the first call reporting means includes apublic broadcast exchange device capable of receiving a plurality ofcalls directed to the first site, and storing the plurality of calls inat least one predetermined queue; and a call management service servercapable of monitoring the at least one predetermined queue to obtainqueue and agent statistics associated with the plurality of calls. 21.The call distributed system according to claim 20, wherein the queue andagent statistics obtained by the call management service server areplaced in a record format that includes a first field including atelecommunications switch extension number that provides informationabout the nature of one of the plurality of telephone calls; a secondfield including a number of outstanding calls associated with thetelecommunications switch extension number that are awaiting service;and a third field including a time value of a longest duration that oneof the number of outstanding calls has been awaiting service.
 22. Thecall distributed system according to claim 21, wherein the record formatfurther includes a fourth field including information identifying one ofa plurality of sites, including said first site, the one of theplurality of calls is directed.
 23. A method for providing a queue andagent statistics associated with a plurality of telecommunicationsevents for viewing on a monitor of a computer interconnected to anetwork, the method comprising the steps of: receiving data associatedwith each of the plurality of telecommunications events; placing thedata in a first format; receiving the data in the first format; andplacing the data in a second format accessible by the computer, whereinthe computer creates a display window to display, in real-time and ingraphical and textual representations, a portion of the data on themonitor of the computer.